


Happy

by elfin



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 21:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19876027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: Happy nodded, and handed Bruce a key card. ‘He left something else for you.’





	Happy

**Author's Note:**

> I had to write something. Endgame was devastating but Far From Home made it worse.  
> This basically assumes the gorgeous love story, started in Avengers Assemble, progressed as good love stories do. So by the time they reached the end, Bruce and Tony were a couple, an established relationship. Tony didn't marry Pepper, never had kids. Bruce didn't become some Bruce-Hulk hybrid.  
> This is a short fic. I'm obsessing in a different, happy, lovely fandom right now. But I had to write something. I had to write this.
> 
> (sort of a minor spoiler for Far From Home which won't make sense unless you've seen it. major spoilers for Endgame.)

‘Tony left EDITH to Spiderman?’

Happy nodded, and handed Bruce a key card. ‘But he left something else for you.’

The lab in the bunker under the Avengers complex was still in tact but it took months for the rubble covering it to be removed and access to be made safe. Bruce took the call from Happy ninety-one miserable days later, and drove out to the compound in the Acura that had once been Tony’s newest shiny toy. He’d tired of it, of course, long before his death, and had given it to Bruce after a throwaway comment that he'd ‘quite liked that car’. It was the kind of thing Tony did. Some found it irritating. To Bruce, it was just the way he was.

The security guards checked his ID and seemed surprised to see him. One of them asked if he was okay. He didn’t answer but he attempted a smile that kinda worked.

The site was still a mess, but it had at least been declared a safe mess. Bruce found the steps down exactly where Happy had told him they would be. There was a steel door at the bottom with a dusty access pad that a swipe of the key card turned from red to green. A click, and the door swung slowly open.

Tony’s robots, Dummy and Butterfingers, were off to one side, powered down, slumped like puppets without a master. A construction booth at the centre of the room was ringed by a work bench strewn with tools, blueprints and tablets. A few of Tony’s prototype suits stood motionless against the far wall. Between he and them there were couches covered in magazines, coffee tables littered with empty mugs, trashcans full of crisp packets and cans. 

Bruce managed a step into the room before his knees buckled and he dropped to the glossy tiled floor, tears streaming over his face. There was a second click, and noise like electronics coming to life, a myriad beams of light from projectors across the ceiling and in the walls sliced through the large, open space and solidified in front of him. Solidified into Tony.

‘Hi, Bruce.’

He thought for a moment that his heart had stopped, took a deep gulping breath and reached out. His hand slipped through the illusion, through the material of a t-shirt that wasn’t there.

‘So this is the part where I say, if you’re seeing this, I did something either monumentally stupid or insanely brave - probably both - and it killed me.’

‘Tony….’ The name fell from his lips in a voice broken by grief.

‘’Yeah. Sorry.’

Bruce took another breath and stared at the beloved face of the man he loved, would always love. It was impossible to say he’d missed seeing that face. He saw it everywhere; graffiti on buildings and advertising thinly disguised as memorials, news reports still hailing him a hero. He saw it in his friend’s eyes, in the hopeful faces of his young students, in his own dreams with he did bother to sleep. But he'd missed having it look back at him.

‘I miss you.’

This projection of Tony was uncharacteristically quiet. 

‘So what’s the deal?’ he asked, with a little laugh that may have been bordering on hysterical. ‘Are there set phrases I need to say?’ Tony’s rendition tips his head sideways, like he’s waiting for something. ‘Seems a little clunky for someone who was always the smartest guy in the room.’

‘Second smartest whenever you were around.’

That brought a smile to Bruce’s face. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Yeah, that was bound to be a starter for ten, wasn’t it?’

‘This isn’t a recording, grasshopper. Seriously, do you think that’s what my parting shot would be? Did you meet me? Don’t answer that. You can’t have that low an opinion of me or you’d never have got down and dirty with me, wouldn’t have touched me with a ten-foot pole.’

‘Tony….’

‘What? Oh, you thought I’d given the kid the keys to the castle and left you with nothing but enough filthy memories to keep little Bruce happy for the rest of time? Please. The kid’s great. But I love you.’

‘What… what is this?’

‘This? This is me.’ He indicates the room. ‘Everything’s here, all my unfinished work, my ideas, some doodles. It’s all yours. I’m all yours. No sharing me with the avengers or with the world.’

‘So you’ve programmed… you. Like you did Jarvis.’

‘I created Jarvis when I was at college, drinking a keg a night and smoking weed all day. I’m state-of-the-art baby.’ He did a little twirl that made Bruce laugh for the first time since the battle. ‘Now, don’t judge, but I figured you’d want me mobile - neither of us want to be cooped up in an underground lab night and day, am I right? You have options.’ He pointed to an array of small items on the nearest coffee table which had been cleared of anything else. ‘The little drones are the equivalent of what I installed here in the lab. The watch is a bit Knight Rider, I’ll grant you, but it comes with a tiny encrypted bluetooth earpiece which sits behind the ear so no one will think you’re deaf and shout at you in restaurants. The implant’s a bit more invasive and it’d be more difficult to turn me off, so to speak. Although let’s face it, you’ve never done that before.’

Bruce was trying to keep up. ‘Implant?’

‘Just so you know, this isn’t a ‘till death do us part’ type thing, okay? I’m not here to haunt you into your wizened years. God knows I wasn’t great at monogamy when I was alive, I don’t expect you to be faithful now I’m dead. You want some alone time, just say the word. But just remember it’s me, and I’m up for threesomes, foursomes, any combination of whatever takes your fancy. Just… not Steve. If he’s still around. You gotta promise me….’

Bruce shook his head.

‘Oh. Sorry.’

‘He… went back. To Peggy.’

‘Seriously?’ Tony’s AI laughed. ‘Wow. Did not see that coming.’ Bruce found himself reaching out again, brushing nothing but air. ‘Sorry. Didn’t have time to make it solid. But you’re a genius. I’m sure you can come up with something. Just for science sake, you know? Not so that we can do anything kinky. Although, if you’re up for it you can take my mere presence as consent.’ He wiggled his eyebrows and Bruce felt something lift from his shoulders. For the first time in years, he felt like life might still be worth living.

He murmured, ‘Thank you, Tony,’ and the AI remained silent, waiting, like he knew Bruce wasn’t speaking to him, not really. ‘You are so fucking smart and so fucking sexy.’ AI Tony’s face lit up. 

‘Let’s do science.’


End file.
